Role SummaryWe are seeking an Associate-level Infrastructure & Engineering Specialist to support mission-critical Global Markets Sales & Trading platforms within a global financial institution. This role combines hands-on infrastructure engineering, environment management, production support, and project delivery responsibilities. The successful candidate will work closely with Global Markets Sales & Trading teams in the Americas while collaborating with Tokyo-based development teams and local technology teams to ensure the stability, security, and availability of business-critical platforms. The position requires active participation throughout the application lifecycle, including infrastructure delivery, testing support, production deployment, post-release maintenance, incident response, and operational support.
Candidates must be based in New York or New Jersey and possess business-level proficiency in both Japanese and English.
Key ResponsibilitiesPlatform Infrastructure & Environment Management- Support infrastructure and environment delivery for mission-critical Global Markets Sales & Trading platforms.
- Manage and maintain Development, QA, UAT, Disaster Recovery, and Production environments.
- Assist with infrastructure planning, implementation, and operational readiness activities.
- Support platform scalability, reliability, security, and performance requirements.
Operations & Production Support- Provide production and BAU support for business-critical systems.
- Investigate and troubleshoot infrastructure and environment-related incidents.
- Coordinate issue resolution across development, infrastructure, security, and vendor teams.
- Support post-release maintenance activities and production stabilization efforts.
- Participate in operational monitoring and proactive problem management.
Stakeholder Engagement- Act as a technical liaison between business users, local technology teams, and Tokyo-based development teams.
- Support Global Markets Sales & Trading users by facilitating issue resolution and infrastructure-related requests.
- Communicate technical issues, risks, and remediation plans to stakeholders across multiple regions.
Release & Change Management- Support release planning, production deployments, and go-live activities.
- Assist in validating infrastructure readiness for new releases and enhancements.
- Participate in disaster recovery testing and business continuity exercises.
- Support smooth transition of projects into ongoing production support.
Security, Risk & Compliance- Implement and maintain infrastructure controls aligned with security, regulatory, audit, and compliance requirements.
- Support access management processes and environment governance activities.
- Assist with audit inquiries, risk remediation activities, and regulatory reviews as required.
Additional Operational RequirementsThis role includes support responsibilities outside standard business hours.
The successful candidate will be expected to:
- Participate in a rotational on-call schedule for after-hours and weekend production incidents.
- Support weekend production releases and maintenance activities.
- Participate in disaster recovery testing activities conducted on weekends.
- Attend meetings with Japan-based teams during Japan business hours several times per week.
- Provide support for high-priority incidents impacting Global Markets business operations when required.
Required Qualifications- 7+ years of experience in Infrastructure Engineering, Platform Engineering, Systems Engineering, or related technology roles.
- Experience working within financial services or other highly regulated industries.
- Experience supporting production systems and business-critical applications.
- Experience participating in large-scale IT projects as an infrastructure or platform engineering team member.
- Understanding of system lifecycle management, including Development, QA, UAT, DR, and Production environments.
- Familiarity with operational support, incident management, problem management, and change management processes.
- Understanding of security, audit, and regulatory requirements applicable to enterprise IT environments.
- Strong troubleshooting and analytical problem-solving skills.
- Demonstrated ability to take ownership of issues and proactively drive resolution.
- Ability to work effectively in a customer-focused environment and respond flexibly to changing business priorities.
- Strong communication and stakeholder management skills.
- Business-level spoken and written Japanese and English (mandatory).
Key Competencies- Customer First Mindset
- Strong Ownership and Accountability
- Proactive Problem Solving
- Cross-Regional Collaboration
- Technical Communication
- Risk Awareness and Control Mindset
- Operational Excellence
- Adaptability and Flexibility
- Teamwork and Relationship Building
SMBC's employees participate in a Hybrid workforce model that provides employees with an opportunity to work from home, as well as, from an SMBC office. SMBC requires that employees live within a reasonable commuting distance of their office location. Prospective candidates will learn more about their specific hybrid work schedule during their interview process. Hybrid work may not be permitted for certain roles, including, for example, certain FINRA-registered roles for which in-office attendance for the entire workweek is required.
